


The Debut

by diadelphous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drinking, F/F, Infidelity, Language, Romance, Slytherins Being Slytherin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 01:39:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadelphous/pseuds/diadelphous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After nearly a year apart, Daphne invites Pansy to attend her debut, where Daphne will choose her future husband. Post-DH.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Debut

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [nearlyconscious](http://nearlyconscious.livejournal.com/) over on LJ as part of the Femmefest exchange.

Pansy Apparated to the gate of Cybelle Castle, the ancestral home of the Greengrass family for twenty generations. She had left autumn behind in England, but this high up in the Alps, snow was falling, drifting through the air like static.   
  
A pair of guards flanked the gate, and they shuffled to attention as the crack from Pansy's Apparition faded. One of them frowned at her, his eyes narrowed, taking in her clothes: the fluttering men's cloak, the tailored waistcoat that skirted dangerously close to Mugglewear.   
  
"Private party," he barked, holding his wand at dueling level. "You got an invitation?"  
  
Pansy gave him her coldest and most withering look, the one she had perfected after nineteen years as a Pureblood and seven years as a Slytherin and one year as a surviving soldier on the losing side of a war. Then she pulled out her own wand and struck the air once. Light poured out and formed into a silhouette of Daphne, and Daphne's voice, lilting and singsong, granted permission for Pansy to enter.   
  
The guard grunted and scowled and tapped the gate with his wand. It swung open in a swirl of snow and magic. Pansy strode through without looking at either of them.  
  
The gate clanged shut behind her.  
  
She was late. They'd already cast the lanterns, hundreds of flickering lights drifting in a stream away from the castle, pale in the wintry afternoon light. One lantern for each guest, tradition dictated.   
  
Big fucking party, then. Daphne's debut was more extravagant than Pansy expected.  
  
Pain twisted in her chest.  
  
She almost hadn't come. She'd played the invitation over and over again during the past month, walking down to the beach so none of the bloody house elves would interrupt her. Daphne's debut. An entirely expected development, but it was a reminder of just how much the war had changed Pansy. Two years ago Pansy had resigned herself to hosting her own debut someday, plucking a potential husband out of the lineup of suitors. Then the Dark Lord died and Pansy found herself burdened with the stigma of being the daughter of former Death Eaters. She couldn't tuck that particular Dark Mark away behind some carefully constructed facade, and after awhile the other facades started to wear away, too.   
  
But  _Daphne._  Her parents hadn't aligned themselves one way or the other, and so she was going along with all of it, the two-day-long party with its lanterns and theatrics and banquets and midnight dance and eventual bloody  _marriage._  
  
And she invited Pansy.  
  
Pansy slipped her wand back into her cloak and made her way through the snowed-over lawn, watching the lanterns glow against the grey sky. Applause rippled from somewhere off in the distance -- the gardens, Pansy knew, she'd been to Cybelle Castle enough as a child -- and then a handful of brighter, blue-green lanterns joined the others. From the suitors. Pansy stopped, her heart beating hard in her chest, and waited. Another burst of applause, and one last lantern drifted up into the stream, bigger than any of the others and glowing the bright, unnatural red of rubies. Daphne's. Beautiful spellwork, of course. You wouldn't expect anything less from Daphne Greengrass.  
  
Pansy's sigh condensed on the air. She trudged forward through the snow, following the sound of voices and the faint strain of music. She almost went into the castle, under the pretense of checking to make sure her trunk had arrived, but she kept walking past the front steps, following the magic-lit path around to the gardens. The air was thin and cold, like glass, and mountain peaks rose around the castle, hemming it in.   
  
The path wrapped around in a bend, and Pansy emerged into a crush of witches and wizards, most of them Pureblood. She straightened her spine and jutted out her chin, daring their criticism. She got a few snide looks, which she expected from this crowd, but nothing she wasn't used to. It seemed that in wizarding high society, at least, her parents' allegiances still held sway.  
  
She jostled forward, toward the stage. Now that the lanterns had been cast, the crowd was drifting apart, into clumps of threes or fours. Pansy'd been to enough of these things that she knew the routine: an hour or so of mingling before the feast began, then a dance, then all the guests would retire to their rooms in order to rest up for the ceremony tomorrow, when the debut would select her future husband.  
  
The stage was currently occupied by a line of eight suitors, all in formal dress robes. Pansy recognized a handful from Hogwarts: Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Thomas Hornby, and a few Gryffindors, but the rest were unfamiliar to her -- although they all possessed that supercilious air which marked them as Pureblood. They were having their picture taken, and they stood with their chests out and the arms stiff as the camera popped and smoked. Pansy pushed forward, craning her neck. The camera man stepped back to his change his film, and she finally saw her.   
  
Daphne.  
  
She stood in the middle of the eight suitors, dressed in white furs and a silky slim-cut robe the same blue-grey color as the sky. She smiled incandescently out at her guests, her hair pinned away from her face with dark blue jewels. Pansy stared at her and a million memories came rushing in: The summers she spent here at Cybelle Castle before Hogwarts, hiding in the earth-scented shadows beneath the pine trees while she and Daphne read through stolen spell books. That first train ride on the Hogwarts Express -- how nervous Daphne had been, fretting about being sorted into the wrong house. The night during their fifth year when they went walking around the Whomping Willow and Pansy kissed Daphne for first time and it was the first kiss where she ever  _felt_  something, the way you were supposed to.  
  
Someone called out Daphne's name. She waved. Smiled. Then her gaze swooped over the crowd and landed on Pansy.   
  
Time stopped. Pansy raised one hand -- not a wave exactly, but an acknowledgment. Daphne didn't move at first, but then she lifted one gloved hand in return. A mirrored gesture. Pansy smiled. Daphne smiled. The party fell away. There was only Pansy, Daphne, the falling snow.  
  
It was a perfect moment. And then it was gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
Dancers swirled across the snow, their feet a few centimeters off the ground, buoyed by magic. Pansy stood off to the side and drank a butterbeer to stave off the cold while the midnight dance carried on around her.   
  
"Check out Astoria and Basil O'Hare." Millicent gestured with her wine glass. "I think Astoria is about to throw up on him."  
  
Pansy grinned. Astoria did look fairly put off, for Astoria -- like her sister, she was adept at hiding her true feelings about any given situation. But Basil O'Hare was a notorious cad of the sort you only ever found at Pureblood parties. Pansy'd danced with him once or twice, when her parents insisted, and she remembered how he seemed to ooze over her like a slime.  
  
"Poor thing," Millicent said. "Someone ought to go save her."  
  
Pansy snorted. "Not me. Astoria can fend for herself."  
  
Millicent shrugged, finished off the last of her wine, and summoned one of the house elves to pour her another. The music twinkled away, and Pansy saw Astoria excuse herself and duck into the crowd, robes swirling around her feet.   
  
"Told you," Pansy said.  
  
"How the hell was I supposed to know? She always seemed so -- fluttery back at school."  
  
"Wartime," Pansy said, her voice flat. Millicent didn't respond.  
  
Another song started, an old wizarding standard that came saddled with a dreadful thousand-year-old dance Pureblood women had been foisting on their children for centuries. Millicent groaned into her wineglass.  
  
"Come on," Pansy said, "before someone sees us and drags out there."  
  
They slipped around the edge of the garden, eventually positioning themselves next to a gaggle of old men in black potioneers' robes.  
  
"Good idea," Millicent said. "If anyone tries to make us dance, we can just pretend we're interested in Death-Cap Draught."  
  
"Exactly." Pansy finished her butterbeer but didn't ask for another. Instead, she watched the dancers. She hadn't brought Millicent and herself over here to be close to the potioneers (although that was a good excuse to get out of dancing) but to have a better view of Daphne in her grey silks and white furs. She glided over the snow and curtsied at her partner, tilting her head so that her hair pooled around her bare décolletage. She smiled, radiant. Pansy remembered the time she and Daphne had been listening to Muggle records up in an abandoned bathroom at Hogwarts; Daphne somehow found one with a recording of this particular song, done by a Muggle symphony from Spain. It hadn't sounded quite right -- it was brighter on the Muggle instruments, almost cheerful -- but she and Daphne had spun around together in the steps they'd both learned since childhood, taking turns leading. Pansy smiled, remembering how Daphne's golden hair had fallen free as she twirled around and around, her laughter drowning out the music.   
  
Daphne was smiling now, although in a polite, understated way. She wasn't laughing. She moved with the same grace as always, although her partner stumbled over his steps. Cameron Summerby. A Pureblood Gryffindor. A shrewd choice, given the political environment, but Pansy still didn't like looking at him.  
  
"Slytherin's balls, I forgot how long this stupid thing lasts." Millicent sipped from her wine and then leaned in close to Pansy. "How many times have they switched partners?"  
  
"Just once, I think." Pansy kicked at the snow. "I figure we're in for another ten minutes at least."  
  
The dance wore on. Daphne swooped and bowed and clapped her hands over her right shoulder. She danced with two more of her suitors before the song ended in a swell of drunken Pureblood applause, and each time she did a rope seemed to tighten around Pansy's heart.  
  
In the silence after the applause, the crowd surged and Daphne disappeared from Pansy's sight.  
  
"They only play it once, right?" Millicent said. "Now we'll just have to avoid O'Hare and I'll call this party a rousing success." She summoned a house elf and ordered another red wine. Millicent could hold her alcohol, but she'd be drunk before long, and then Pansy would lose her only ally in this snowy, high altitude disaster.  
  
Why did Daphne have to go and play at the good Pureblood girl and get married? And why couldn't Pansy have just done the same fucking thing?  
  
She was just about to summon the house elf herself when a voice broke through the murmur of the crowd. Soft, lilting, feminine.  
  
"So glad my old school chums could make it."  
  
Pansy looked up, and there Daphne was, shrouded by the falling golden light of the party and close enough, finally, to touch. Pansy didn't touch her.  
  
"The chance to see you stumble over Summerby?" she asked instead. "Wouldn't miss it."  
  
"Yeah, seriously," Millicent said. Then, dutifully, she added, "Congratulations."  
  
"Thanks, Milly." Daphne beamed. "Did you know Daniel Broadmoor was here? He was asking after you."  
  
"Oh yeah?" Millicent raised an eyebrow. "What does he want?"  
  
"He mentioned something about the Quidditch leagues starting up again --"  
  
" _Finally_."  
  
"He said something about a team sponsorship. He thought you might be interested."   
  
"A team sponsorship? Really?" Millicent craned her head, looking into the crowd. "Where is he?"   
  
"Over by the band. I told him I'd fetch you for him."  
  
"Thanks, Daph. I'll owe you big time if this works out." She took a long swig of wine and then disappeared into the crowd. Pansy watched her go.  
  
"Did that really happen?" she said.   
  
"Of course." Daphne smiled, sly. "But it was opportune, don't you think?"  
  
"Yeah." Pansy shoved her hands into her pockets, her skin hot despite the cold air. Daphne patted at her hair, smoothing it down even though it was already perfect. A nervous gesture, Pansy knew.   
  
"I missed you," Pansy said in a low voice.  
  
Daphne stared at her, the party lights making her eyes shine. "I want to show you something."  
  
Pansy's breath caught. She slipped her hands out of her pockets, her heart hammering.   
  
"It's in the northern garden," Daphne said. "A special flower." She glanced at the potioneers, still hanging around in their dark robes like old crows. "You were always interested in Herbology."  
  
"Yeah," Pansy said. "Herbology."  
  
Daphne extended one pale elegant hand, and Pansy took it. Daphne's skin was warmer than Pansy expected. From dancing, maybe.  
  
They walked to the garden together, their linked hands swinging between them as if they were little girls again. When they were clear of the noise and light of the party, Pansy tilted her head back and blinked up at the milky swirl of stars, and Daphne said, "I like your robes."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Mm. Very dapper."   
  
Pansy smiled, still looking up at the stars. The Muggles thought stars were far-away suns, moving through empty space. A beautiful impossibility. Just like a true, Pureblood marriage between herself and Daphne.  
  
They reached the northern garden. It was abandoned, lit only by moonlight.  
  
"So," Pansy said, "this flower."  
  
"I don't know," Daphne said. "Must've died while I wasn't looking."  
  
Pansy rolled her eyes and Daphne laughed. The northern garden was full of statues, marble recreations of Greengrass ancestors. When a Greengrass died, their spirit turned to stone and came here, so they would never have to leave Cybelle Castle. Those statues watched them with their glittering grey eyes, but they didn't move and they didn't speak and they didn't judge. Pansy grabbed Daphne by both hands and pulled her over to the side of the castle, pressing her back up against the stones. Ten months had passed since Pansy had last kissed Daphne, and kissing her now was like waking up from a magic-induced coma.  
  
"Well," Daphne said when Pansy pulled away, her breath warm on Pansy's neck, "You weren't lying when you said you missed me."  
  
"I never lie." Pansy kissed along Daphne's neck, relishing the little gasps of pleasure Daphne released into the night air.  
  
"You're a Slytherin. We all lie." Daphne pressed her mouth against Pansy's and they kissed for a long time, silent save for the rustle of their robes against each other.  
  
"I never lie to you," Pansy said, when they finished.  
  
Daphne smiled. She looked happier in that moment than she had at any other point in the party, not during the dance, not during the feast when she sat at the head of the table and toasted her potential suitors. Pansy's jealousy from earlier evaporated completely. She knew the reason for Daphne's happiness. She knew it, Daphne knew it, the fucking Greengrass statues knew it and there wasn't a thing they could about it.  
  
"You should have asked me to be one of your suitors," Pansy said.  
  
"I did. I told Mother but she balked something terrible and made me ask Kenneth Towler instead." They both knew Daphne had done nothing of the sort; her mother was so proper the suggestion might have killed her.  
  
"A Gryffindor boy over a Slytherin girl? Sounds like a Pureblood."  
  
Daphne laughed and pulled Pansy into another kiss. This one was more urgent than the others, more heated. Pansy slipped the the furs away from Daphne's shoulders and dropped them in the snow. Daphne didn't protest, only made a soft murmuring noise of acquiescence. Pansy kissed along Daphne's jawline and down into the curve of her throat, breathing in the sweet golden scent of her perfume. Daphne traced her hand down Pansy's spine, up and down, up and down.  
  
Pansy pulled away and began to undo the buttons of Daphne's robe.  
  
"Here?" Daphne whispered, her voice caught deep in her throat. Pansy smiled, sly, and nodded -- a smile Daphne returned, a devilish glint in her eye. It was like Hogwarts again, finding places in the hallways and the grounds to explore one another's bodies, the threat of discovery always there, igniting them.  
  
Pansy unbuttoned the robe to Daphne's waist and then pulled the fabric away. Daphne gasped, throwing her head back, revealing the long line of her neck. Her bare skin gleamed in the moonlight. Her breasts were as full and pale as Pansy remembered, and she braced Daphne against the wall as she took one nipple in her mouth. Daphne gasped again and slid her hand in Pansy's hair, her fingers digging into Pansy's scalp as Pansy licked and sucked at Daphne's breasts. She pressed one hand against the wall of the castle and ran the other over Daphne's nipples, relishing the little shivers and trembles her touch elicited.  
  
Snow began to fall, white flakes dusting across Daphne's skin. Pansy licked them away and Daphne cried out, her voice preternaturally loud in the snowy silence.  
  
"Shhhh," Pansy whispered in Daphne's ear, her hands still working Daphne's breasts. "Your suitors will hear."  
  
"It's been -- too long," Daphne gasped. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and moaned, her moan turning to steam on the frozen air.   
  
Pansy had done this enough times to know how close Daphne was. She pressed her body into hers, squeezing at her nipples, drawing the orgasm out of her. Daphne's body began to shake and she let out a long gasping cry that Pansy silenced with a kiss.  
  
When she had finished completely, Daphne leaned her head back against the stone wall, her cheeks and chest flushed red. Pansy could feel her own desire building inside her, a heavy warmth that spread out into her extremities.  
  
"I thought you might've forgotten what I like," Daphne said, gazing coyly up at Pansy.  
  
"Please." Pansy drew the robes back over Daphne's body; she was shivering, and this time Pansy knew it was from the cold. She bent down and picked up the furs and handed them back to Daphne, who wrapped them tight around her shoulders before drawing Pansy in for a kiss. Daphne's hand slipped down, began its slow familiar rub between Pansy's legs.  
  
Pansy resisted the urge to scream.  
  
"There are other things I've missed, too," Daphne whispered, and Pansy dropped back her head and looked up at the stars and the snowfall and through the thick blanket of her pleasure she thought,  _This is perfect._  
  
On the other side of the castle, in the garden with the party, a trumpet sounded.  
  
"Fuck!" Daphne dropped her hand away and whirled around. Pansy slumped against the wall, her body still burning. "Fuck, they're starting the closing ceremony."  
  
"You should probably be there for that." The words felt like ash, but seeing Daphne's frustration made Pansy feel better.  
  
Daphne sighed with vexation and patted at her hair. "At least they shouldn't take too long, right? It's just the first night. I told the elves to put you in the hyacinth room, by the way."  
  
Pansy grinned. "Good." The hyacinth room had a secret passage that connected to the wing where Daphne's bedroom was located; they'd been using that secret passage for years, ever since they were little girls and only interested in staying up past their bedtimes.  
  
Daphne glanced at her and laughed, twinkling and bright. Her laughter made Pansy's skin throb. "Let me just go be pretty for another half our and then we'll finish this up." She trailed one finger down Pansy's jaw. "You better be ready for me."  
  
"I'm ready for you now."  
  
Daphne smiled the way she did whenever she was turned on. Pansy kissed her again, one last time before the ceremony.  
  
"Go," she said. "Not sure how long I can wait."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind." Another kiss, and then Daphne picked up her skirts and ran through the garden, kicking up a spray of snow behind her.  
  
Pansy leaned against the castle and watched the snow fall. She was glad she had forced herself to come to this party, because it had confirmed the one thing she had hoped for during these past months:  
  
Daphne still loved her.  
  


* * *

  
  
Pansy heard Daphne's footsteps echoing in the walls. The other guests would probably dismiss them as belonging to one of the castle ghosts, but Pansy knew the slow, languorous rhythm of Daphne's walk better than she knew anything.  
  
The footsteps silenced. Pansy held her breath. Then the huge ornate bookshelf set in the wall spun out, and Daphne stepped through, lifting her hands in the air like she'd just performed magic. She wore a sheer, diaphanous nightgown and her hair tumbled around her shoulders, gleaming in the candlelight. For a moment they just looked at each other, and Pansy hardly dared to move, afraid she might be dreaming all this, that if she moved she'd wake up and the vision would evaporate away.  
  
But then Daphne laughed and pounced into the bed, tackling Pansy back against the cushions.  
  
"I've been waiting for  _hours_ ," Pansy said.  
  
"Oh, shut it. You have not." Daphne rolled onto her back and they lay side by side, their hands linked. "I made my getaway as fast I could. Dorian Oakden kept trying to talk to me. Dreadfully dull." She propped herself up on her elbow and gazed down at Pansy, who wore a bra and knickers and nothing else.   
  
"I take it you won't be marrying him," Pansy said.  
  
Daphne frowned. She reached over and traced patterns on Pansy's stomach, Dark runes that left tingles of sensation across Pansy's skin. It was a spell they had taught themselves the summer between their fifth and sixth years, one that enhanced sensation in the human body.  
  
"I don't want to talk about that now," Daphne said.  
  
"I can see that." In truth, Pansy didn't want to talk about it, either. The runes glistened on her skin and her body was already starting to come aflame from the memory of their interrupted encounter earlier.   
  
Daphne kissed her. She slipped her fingers in the band of Pansy's panties and slipped them down. Every touch felt like a lightning bolt because of the magic. Pansy arched her back and let out a long sigh and Daphne kissed down the length of her stomach and then settled between her thighs, still kissing. Pleasure shuddered through Pansy in fits and starts, the magic amplifying it to the point that it almost, but not quite, became painful. That line was one that Daphne loved to toe -- and moreover she knew  _how_ , knew how to dance up to it and slip away.  
  
Pansy let out a shout as Daphne slipped her fingers inside her. She dug her nails into the bedsheets and squeezed her eyes shut. She could hardly feel the limits of her body anymore. She was desire, nothing but desire.  
  
And she screamed all that desire out.  
  
When Pansy had finished, Daphne grinned up at her from between her legs. Her mouth was wet and her hair was tousled. It was the sexiest thing Pansy had ever seen.  
  
"Good thing I cast the Muffliato Charm before I came in."  
  
Pansy laughed. She dropped her head back on her pillow and Daphne slid up beside her and nestled her head in her shoulder. They stayed like that for a long time, not speaking, just breathing together, like their bodies had connected at the soul.  
  
And then Daphne broke the silence.  
  
"I really do hope this doesn't upset you," she said quietly, speaking into Pansy's shoulder.  
  
"You know it doesn't."  
  
"I'm not talking about  _this_ , I'm talking about --" Daphne gestured to the window, out to the garden, where everything was frozen in place for the engagement ceremony tomorrow. "Everything."  
  
"So was I." Pansy rolled over onto her side so she could look Daphne in the eye. "I mean -- okay, I was a little upset before. A lot, maybe, but I've had time to think about it, and -- honestly, I'd be disappointed in you if you didn't do it."  
  
Daphne smiled a little, almost shy. It twisted a knot in Pansy's heart because it reminded her so much of the first time they'd kissed, not as children but when they were old enough to understand what such a kiss meant. The air had smelled of autumn and the Whomping Willow had hung silent in the background. And Daphne had smiled just like that.  
  
"Look," Pansy said. "You've spent the last seven years talking about how you want a position in the Ministry. You studied harder than any of us, and you dragged me to all those boring parties --"  
Daphne grinned, remembering.  
  
"And then the stupid war came and  _Potter_  and all the rest of it." Pansy sat up, her face flushed. Daphne lay back, watching her, waiting for her to finish. "I was so furious about that, and you know why? It wasn't 'cause of me. It was better for me, in a way. Now that being a Parkinson isn't such a great thing, I can be who I want. But you -- it wouldn't let you be who you want."  
  
Daphne stared at Pansy, unmoving.   
  
"It's not fair to you." Pansy shrugged. "What the war did, tearing down all our old connections. It's not like it made it so that you could marry me and still go work at the Ministry." She stared down at her hands. Her face was still hot. "Just don't pick a tosser."  
  
Silence. Then Daphne sat up and drew Pansy into an embrace. It was a relief. Pansy buried her face in to Daphne's hair and breathed in her sweet lilac scent. Daphne touched Pansy's chin with two fingers and kissed Pansy once, gently.  
  
"I was going to ask you to help me pick," she said. "If it wouldn't bother you."  
  
"You want me to help you pick out your husband?" Pansy laughed. "Are you sure that's a good idea? You remember I thought  _Draco Malfoy_  made sense as a boyfriend."  
  
Daphne laughed. "He  _did_. He had the connections and the family. He was a perfect smokescreen."  
  
"Right." Pansy settled against Daphne and she drew them both back, so that they were leaning up against the bed board. It felt good, lying like this in Daphne's arms. It felt  _right_. But Pansy had meant everything she said about understanding why Daphne had to get married. She wanted to be Minister for Magic someday. And she couldn't do that with a wife. She probably couldn't even do it with a Slytherin husband, these days.  
  
"So which one do you like?" Daphne pulled out her wand and tapped the air and the faces of each of her potential suitors appeared one by one, outlined by magic. "Remember, this is purely a political arrangement. I plan on keeping a lover on the side."  
  
Pansy grinned and nuzzled Daphne's shoulder. "Well, in that case, you'll want to get rid of the Slytherins."  
  
"My thoughts exactly." Daphne waved her wand and the Slytherin boys all disappeared. "That leaves us a pair of Gryffindors and a Ravenclaw."  
  
"Tell me about them."  
  
"They're older than us by about five or six years. Well, except Dorian Oakden. He's the Ravenclaw. He was only three years above us."  
  
He was the only one Pansy didn't recognize, and she squinted at him. He had a foppish air about him, with long hair and a fashionable robe. After a few seconds pause she realized she did know him, vaguely.  
  
"He didn't do much of anything, did he?" she asked. "No Quidditch or anything?"   
  
"No. Like I said, he's terribly dull."  
  
"That may be good for you, actually. You wouldn't want someone too ambitious." Pansy considered him. "And you'll probably get along better with a Ravenclaw better than with a Gryff."  
  
"I thought about that." Daphne tilted her head, appraising. "Of course, Cameron Summerby has a father in the Ministry, so that could be an excellent connection."  
  
Pansy looked at her. "For you or for him?"  
  
Daphne paused. Her brow wrinkled and the light from the magic shone across her hair.  
  
"You're right," she said. "For him."  
  
She waved her wand and the two Gryffindors disappeared in twin wisps of red smoke. Dorian hovered in the air, turning his face side to side nervously, like he knew they were talking about him.  
  
"Daphne Oakden," Pansy said. "Has a nice ring to it."  
  
"Not as nice as Daphne Parkinson."  
  
Pansy blushed and then felt like an idiot for blushing. Daphne laughed and wrapped her arms around Pansy's shoulders and kissed Pansy hard on the mouth.  
  
"Thank you," she whispered, her voice barely more than an exhaled breath.  
  
Without looking, Pansy lifted her wand and waved it once, so Dorian would disappear.   
  
"When you're Minister for Magic," Pansy said, "I expect to be given a position in Ministry Authorities."  
  
"I'll give you anything you want," Daphne said, and she kissed Pansy again, and they fell down on the bed, twining their bodies around each other.  
  
They stayed that way until morning.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Have you made your decision, Daphne Greengrass?"  
  
"I have." Daphne's voice floated out from behind a curtain of shimmering magic. All Pansy could see of her was her silhouette. The suitors lined up beside the curtain, all of them pale and nervous. Pansy smiled to herself.  
  
"You're looking rather pleased with this whole situation," Millicent said.  
  
"It's a happy occasion." Pansy kept her eyes on the curtain. "Our school chum's about to get engaged."  
  
"Right."   
  
Pansy could feel Millicent staring at her, but she didn't bother to say anything more. Caliban Cook was bantering with the still-silhouetted Daphne, and the wizards out in the crowd were shuffling and sighing with anticipation, like they'd managed to delude themselves this whole idiotic arrangement was romantic.  
  
They didn't know romance. Not a single one of them. But Pansy did.  
  
She scanned the lines of suitors until she picked out Dorian Oakden. He wore his robes in the Continental style, and his long hair was slicked back away from his face. He really was the best choice. He'd look good hanging off Daphne's arm in photographs in  _The Daily Prophet._  
  
"Well, I think we've kept these young men waiting long enough," Caliban said, and he turned to the young men in question and winked. They were all too nervous to do anything but shift their weight and glance at each other.  
  
"Are you ready, boys?" Daphne asked. Behind the curtain, her silhouette put hands on hips, striking a pose.  
  
"Well, are you?" Caliban turned to the suitors.  
  
They didn't answer right away. Then Blaise Zabini barked out, "Ready as ever!"  
  
The audience laughed even though it wasn't funny.  
  
Pansy held her breath.  
  
"I, Daphne Greengrass, daughter of Lisette Greengrass, choose --" She paused. Pansy thought the witches and wizards in the audience might literally explode with anticipation.  
  
"I choose Dorian Oakden."  
  
This choice was greeted with thunderous applause, as any of the choices would have been. Dorian looked like he might faint. The other suitors lifted their heads, trying to be the bigger man.  
  
The curtain of magic sparkled away, and there stood Daphne, more beautiful, Pansy thought, than she'd ever seen her. She wore a low-cut, off-the-shoulder robe the white of fresh-fallen snow, accented with bits of brilliant red like holly berries. Her pale, bare shoulders gleamed in the winter sunlight.   
She stepped off her dais and took Dorian by the hand, smiling brilliantly at him. He didn't seem to know what to make of her, but then, boys never did.  
  
"I choose -- ," Daphne began, which was what a good Pure Blood witch was supposed to say when she selected her fiancé. You were supposed to look him in the eye and say your choice to his face.  
  
And Daphne did. But at the last moment, she turned out to the audience, to the place where Pansy stood. The cold air crystallized the moment around them, and for that split second, everything was how it should be, as they stared at each other across the crowd of Purebloods, Daphne looking Pansy right in the eye.


End file.
